


Killing Sidisi

by Fierceawakening



Series: Sultai Crossover AU [4]
Category: Magic: The Gathering, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, Gore, Humanized
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-12
Updated: 2015-05-12
Packaged: 2018-03-30 04:27:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3922855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fierceawakening/pseuds/Fierceawakening
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sultai crossover AU (TFP Megatron and Starscream transplanted into Tarkir, Megatron as a human and Starscream as a naga.)</p><p>Inspired by discovering that in the alternate timeline, Sidisi is slain and made into a zombie. Since Megatron in this fic series was already plotting to kill her, the idea was entirely too good to pass up. </p><p>What happens when Megatron and Starscream get their wish, and slay the khan of the Sultai.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Killing Sidisi

"That crown looks ridiculous on you," Starscream hissed.

Heads turned. Starscream could feel the stares. An entire army of humans, all glaring at him with round, beady eyes. A few of his own kind, their reptilian eyes unblinking.

Even the zombies turned their heads to stare at him out of pitted, empty eye sockets. The spaces where their eyes had been glowed purple, telltale sign of the magic that controlled them.

They had no minds of their own, no reason to shame him with their ruined gazes. Their stares were a cruel joke. Or a demonstration of their master's power.

It might not have humiliated Starscream so much if all the zombies had been human. Humans were fit for little more than being raised from the dead as sibsig anyway. But seeing nagas like himself transformed into rotting, mindless corpses, then bent to the will of --

Starscream cursed. His tongue flicked out to taste the air. It tasted like their anger. Smelled like the rotting flesh of the sibsig and the spilled blood of humans and nagas alike.

Still, even seeing his own kind made into Megatron’s zombies, the purple glow of his magic brightening their eyes and weaving through the holes in their rotting flesh, was better than looking down.

Better than staring at the one naga in this room they’d left lifeless. However bedecked in gems and gold her body might be.

And however long his claws had itched to snatch up the golden crown her corpse wore. He fidgeted.

Still hissing, he lowered his head in a show of deference. "My khan," he amended, his voice smooth.

The human in front of him -- blood-spattered but unfortunately very much alive -- smiled. His eyes glowed the same eldritch purple as the sibsig's for a moment, then faded to a dark brown-black.

The blade in his hands, spattered with human and naga blood alike -- with a few smears of gore from the clan’s crocodiles, or the former khan’s legions of attack baboons -- shone purple as well. Tendrils of enchantment wove around it. Lingered around the bloodstains as though thirsty.

Starscream shuddered.  _I suppose that’s what you get when you make deals with demons._

The warrior --  _our new khan_ , Starscream reminded himself -- swept an arm through the air. As one, the zombies turned away from Starscream.

And back toward their master.

"Megatron," Starscream hissed under his breath.

He was broad-framed for a hairless mammal, his scarred body bulging with muscle. When Starscream had first met him, he’d shown it off. He’d kept his chest bare and shaved, as if daring his enemies to take their best shot at him.

Or showing off his tattoo, the dragon’s fang symbol of their clan, wreathed in patterns of green and blue ink.

But this was a battle, not a bout in the death pits, and Megatron had armored himself accordingly. He’d had his little tribe of humans piece together mail from the scaled hide of fallen nagas. 

He’d raised most of the nagas they’d killed as sibsig. Those few he hadn’t judged worthy of making into zombies, he'd used for his second skin. 

That was gruesome, and made Starscream wince. Human zombies he'd long ago grown used to. Someone had to wait on the nagas in their palaces. But seeing Megatron wear nagas' scales was something else again. 

Still, better to stare at Megatron and try to pretend he looked like a naga than to look down. 

Living in the Sultai palaces, Starscream had seen many things. Sibsig by the score, their limbs and flesh rotted away, their legless torsos made into tables for their naga masters. 

He'd seen torment. Human victims tossed into the crocodile pits, bones broken from the fall, then torn still living into morsels for the beasts, their blood staining the waters. Nagas' claws, slashing the bellies of human, aven, ainok, and orc. 

The stain of his own venom, black corrosion spreading through the veins his fangs pierced. 

But the bite of Megatron's blade was another matter entirely. Enchanted -- or cursed -- by the very blood of a rakshasa, it shared the demons' lust to consume all life. The noxious breath of the dragon Silumgar could hardly have done worse. 

Starscream shook his head to clear it, forced himself to stare up at the naga-skin clad Megatron instead. Morbid as it was, it did make the new khan of the Sultai look a little bit less like one of the army’s attack baboons. 

Sad to say there wasn’t much to be done for his face. Starscream allowed himself a sibilant laugh, feeling better already. 

And Megatron did look silly in that crown. His features were harsh, his cheeks lined with the same old scars as his body. He kept his hair cropped to the scalp, not Jeskai-bald but close enough, and the diadem looked wrong on him. Delicate golden chains hung from it, and one bright gem gleamed from a plate of gold that hung down over his forehead. 

As fond as his clan was of finery, it looked like a child’s toy. 

 _Which_ , Starscream reflected, _is basically what it is._  

He looked at Megatron and raised his head. “My apologies, Lord Megatron. I only meant to say that that diadem -- Well. The last human to wear it was Tasigur, almost a thousand years ago, and he --" 

"Was a petulant child," Megatron finished for him. 

Starscream licked at the air again. “Yes." 

“And you know that I am not.” 

"Of course," Starscream soothed, still wondering what this portended. "My khan." 

"And yet you criticize." 

The living nagas hissed. Starscream flicked his tongue at them. _Flatterers. I'm the reason his little uprising got this far in the first place._

 _Without me, his little band of humans would never have made it past the gates of Kheru Temple. The sibsig alone would have torn them apart._  

Once again, the dead nagas echoed the living ones’ laughter. The sibsig who had once been human joined in. 

Those who still had throats, at least. 

"Never, my lord --” Starscream tried to say. 

Megatron ignored him and bent down. 

Starscream’s eyes followed before his mind could warn them not to look. 

The body below him had once been a naga’s. He could see that from her size, from the scaled tail curling beneath her fallen torso, from the pattern of scales that had once been vibrant green. From the shape of the head and the lidless, unblinking eyes. 

From the clawed hands, clenched with the memory of some terrible despair. From the fangs in the open mouth, venom still glistening on their tips. From the gold and gems and clothes that still wrapped around the body, sure sign of favored position in the Sultai court. 

From the crown Megatron reached down to pluck from her hairless head. 

But Starscream could see none of it now. He stared only at the wound in the corpse’s chest. 

It had blackened and rotted, as if pierced by a naga’s venom. But the similarities ended there.  

Skin and flesh alike had boiled away, some black virulence eating through both, stripping them to the bone. The ribs were not so much broken as shattered, snapped like burnt twigs, their sharp edges stained with the same rot as the few ribbons of flesh that remained. The scales, too, had turned gray, as though even the living color within them had been drained away. 

Starscream’s eyes darted to Megatron’s sword. It pulsed with a chilly malevolence, as though laughing at him. He hissed and looked down again. 

If he had to see it, he might as well see it all. 

What oozed from the wound was not blood but a bubbling ichor, a thick black oil that seethed with its own putrescence, tinted red with the vestiges of the blood that it transmuted.

The pierced heart had contracted in on itself, as though in terror of its own wound. That wound was a black gash, so dark and deep it hurt Starscream’s eyes to stare at it. He had never seen the point of eyelids, never envied the humans their ability to close their eyes. But the noxious fluid pooled around the dead naga’s body was almost a relief after the black void of the gash.

Fine cloths wrapped around her ruined chest in ichor-soaked tatters. Bracelets gleamed on her wrists. And crowning her lifeless, grimacing head, the most priceless crown any naga could wear. The gold gleamed amid filth, and Starscream reached down to pick it up -- 

\-- only for Megatron’s fleshy, clawless, all-too-human fingers to snatch it first. 

He lifted it up above his head, heedless of the noxious mess dripping from it. Perhaps his enchanted blade made him immune to its own effects, and he had nothing to fear. Perhaps, like a naga’s venom, it would need to be injected into a vein to kill. Perhaps Megatron was a reckless fool. 

But whichever it was, the crown had been made for a naga. Sidisi had been young, even for a khan of the Sultai. She'd won through ruthlessness what others had earned through age and wisdom and careful cultivation of alliances. 

But only the youngest of nagas were as small as humans. 

“You would rather I try this?” Megatron teased. His humans laughed with him. They stepped closer to Megatron, formed a circle around their general and around the shattered body on the floor. 

And around Starscream, who was apparently too close. 

Starscream slithered backward. He'd never gotten used to crowds of humans. Dealing with Megatron was fine -- Megatron made it easy to forget he was an ape sometimes. But his little pack of monkeys still made Starscream feel unclean, and right now the beasts were too close for his comfort. 

Starscream looked at the hungry blade and winced. “No, of course not, my lord. But you could keep it -- as a symbol. All of the Sultai know what it means, and that silly thing --” 

“They do,” Megatron said. He knelt again and laid it back on Sidisi's lifeless head with absurd care. 

"You mean for them to see her body, still wearing the trappings of her rule, and fear you." Starscream made himself chuckle. He supposed it was clever enough. 

"Close enough,” snapped one of Megatron’s humans. She smirked at Starscream, who snarled and swiped at her with his claws. 

He’d rather have bitten, but that might be pushing his luck right now. He might have gotten Megatron and his band of monkeys in here, but they’d forget that soon enough if they thought he’d turn on them, too. 

“Stand aside, Starscream,” said one of the naga zombies, its voice an eerie parody of Megatron’s. Human noises forced out of a snake’s throat. 

Starscream cringed. _Stop doing that._ But he moved away all the same. 

So did the humans -- or at least, the ones dressed in the heaviest armor, with the most naga blood staining their armor and shields. 

Some of the living nagas stepped forward as well, their hisses becoming a sibilant chant. The humans took it up, some harmonizing with low, deep hums, others trilling in what sounded to Starscream like a feeble parody of birds’ songs. 

The sounds became words. Starscream’s scaled body wove back and forth, agitated, as he strained to make them out. 

Magic, clearly, and his own had never been the best. A smattering of mind-magic, perhaps, but weak enough that he often turned to the lulling hypnosis of the lotus perfume anyway. 

The undead echoed the words a moment later. Starscream’s tongue licked at the air. Was the power Megatron had wrenched from the rakshasa so strong that he could force his sibsig to chant spells? 

Starscream shuddered. The Sultai had always found power in death, always sought it and used it, but this -- 

The magics glowed. Purple weaving over and through Megatron, lighting up the sibsigs’ eyes, running through them like luminescent makeshift blood. Green for the magic of the human shamans and the living nagas, the stuff of life and vigor. 

Streaks of blue, for mind-magic. But why would Megatron need mind-magic for his sibsig? 

But the mind-magic hardly mattered. Not when a black cloud wove its way between the singers, darkening the bright-painted room. 

“No,” Starscream whispered. 

In the center of the circle, Sidisi’s lifeless body rose, curling up on its scaled tail in a parody of standing upright. 

“No,” Starscream called again, louder. 

He’d seen mind-magic in their spellcraft. But what sibsig had a mind left to control?

 “You don’t know what this will do!” he cried. 

Megatron looked at him, over the heads of the humans in the circle. Fixed him with the searing stare of his magic.

He saw the echo of it in Sidisi’s eyes. Blazing and bright and unblinking as his own. 

She hissed. Was that an echo of Megatron’s voice, like the others? Starscream hadn’t heard her speak. 

Starscream withered under their twinned gazes. “She -- she will -- your sibsig keep their magic. If she does too --” 

But the magic had lifted Sidisi to her full height now, taller than Megatron, taller even than Starscream, and he could see nothing but the bright light of the magic and the shadow choking everything else. It blazed around Sidisi’s lifeless form, made the crown on her head gleam, lit the ruin of her chest and the tattered flesh around her wound. 

“Stand aside,” said a voice. A feminine voice, a snake’s voice, a cold lifeless parody of Megatron’s. He must have spoken first, or at least at the same time, but Starscream heard only the dead khan, speaking for the living one. The thing that had been Sidisi swiped its claws at him and he twisted aside with a living naga’s grace. Defeated, he slithered away. 

The risen Sidisi came first, moving through the doors of her chamber in a jerky parody of a snake’s movements. Megatron followed behind her, his mages after that, his fighters last. Starscream came with them. 

In spite of himself, in spite of all that had happened, Starscream allowed himself a soft laugh. Sibsig shambled, all of them. But this one wasn’t simply moving as any zombie did. This one was slave to Megatron’s will, curling tendrils of mind-magic weaving around her head. 

 _You don’t know how to move her, do you, my khan? You have legs._  

But it didn’t really matter. Couldn’t have mattered. The cloud of magic she moved in and the stark horror of her wounding saw to that. All around them, whether human or naga, whether loyalist or revolutionary, the Sultai moved to let them pass. 

Even sibsig stood aside, if they had limbs to move with. Compelled by magic or forced by the will of their masters, they too moved to let Sidisi pass, and the smaller figure of Megatron behind her. 

Humans fell to their knees. Groveling had come naturally to them for long generations. Megatron’s close followers, perhaps, had earned some dignity when they’d joined him. But the farmers and the peasants? They knew only to kneel. 

The living nagas followed suit, sliding to their bellies, hissing and snarling as they genuflected. They were kin to dragons. They had always ruled. 

But even they knew what they must do. 

Starscream flicked his tongue at them, bunched up his coils, and rose taller. Traitor he might have been, but he had a place here. The others did not. 

They paused on a high landing. Megatron held up his hand and Sidisi halted, jerked to a stop by the force of his will. 

“People of the Sultai brood,” Megatron called out. His puppet echoed his words, in a loud cry that that sounded entirely wrong torn from a snake’s throat. 

 _Brood?_ Starscream thought. _You didn’t even hatch from an egg, human._  

But if any of the prostrate crowd thought it, they knew well enough not to say. 

“Our clan has long had a vision. A vision of a united Tarkir -- a Tarkir under the rule not of monks in their towers or tree-kin hiding from the harshness of the desert behind hidden walls. Nor of raiders and bandits riding through the wastes, claiming all they can and forgetting it by the next sunrise. Nor of a wasteland trampled to nothing by beasts and the half-wild seers and barbarians who tend them. 

“A vision of Sultai ascendancy. A vision of all Tarkir claimed by an army of the living and the dead, ruthless as the dragons that once ruled our skies.” 

Starscream liked the words. But they came hollow and empty from Sidisi’s mouth. The ruined lungs were still, not needing breath to fill them. And her jaws opened and closed like an ape’s. Her tongue stayed in her mouth, never flicking out to smell or taste the air. 

And Megatron, mighty as he was with the blade that felled her strapped still glowing to his back, looked small as a toy, a child khan’s diadem circling his head. 

“Too long have we turned that ruthlessness on one another,” the twin voices said. It was ridiculous, coming from Sidisi’s mouth. She’d fed half the clan to the crocodiles in the pits, and made sibsig out of any human the crocodiles left enough of to raise. 

“Nagas killed humans for sport,” Megatron and Sidisi said, echoing his thoughts. “Or ripped any wealth or resources from those they left alive.” 

The humans around Starscream cheered. Even some of the groveling loyalists lifted their heads in wonder. 

“But who can that benefit but the other clans whose rule would ruin both Tarkir and us? How can we build an empire if we tear at ourselves, and only the ranks of mindless sibsig swell?” 

Sidisi’s mouth closed, snapping shut, swallowing the magic caught in her open throat. Her head lowered, a slow uneven twitch, until it bowed. 

Starscream stared at Sidisi. The halo of magic still shone green and blue. Green for death made into near-life, blue for power over minds. 

Had Megatron willed that she lower her head slowly for effect? Or did that blue wisp of mind-magic mean something more than any of the Sultai might dare to guess? 

“I share the vision of your former khan,” Megatron called. His voice was loud, but without the accompanying cries from Sidisi his voice sounded small to Starscream. “Sultai ascendancy, once and for all. 

“But I call on all of us to stand behind it. Human or naga -- or even rakshasa, hidden away in your temples. I know that you hear me and see me. And I know that if you see me, you see what your power can do -- when bent to its proper end. 

“Too long have the dragon-kin made sibsig of whomever they please. Too long have they promised ‘second skin’ to those who obey them, without offering a reason for it. Without promising a Tarkir under Sultai rule would be worth rising from the dead to fight for.” 

He smiled. His eyes gleamed. “I want to rule Tarkir, as this one” -- he pointed at Sidisi -- “did before me. I will neither hide that nor pretend it is not so. But I would see the Sultai rise with me. I would see us become not a clan of cringing peasants and wealth-stuffed gluttons, but a clan that can truly lay claim to its symbol: the fang of the dragon.” 

Starscream hissed an approximation of applause. He expected the others to try it as well. desperate to impress this human who had made the most fearsome of the nagas into his voice and his toy. But few did. They watched and listened and trembled. 

It seemed to be enough. Megatron smiled and waved his hand. 

Sidisi lurched, the magic propelling her forward, a black cloud above her and a dance of light surrounding her. She hissed once, an eerie protest, and lowered her chest to the ground. Blood and ichor dripped down onto the polished floor below her, and at last she slipped into it and was still. 

The crown, still golden and gleaming, slid from her head and fell down the steps of the temple. 

Starscream curled his itching claws, and watched, and waited. 

 

  
  



End file.
